Baked French Toast with apple pie topping

Have you ever been called a cheapskate? I have, and I own  that title!! I have some bread that isn't bad but it's going stale and dry. I hate throwing food away, so we looked for a tasty way to use it up, and found one. Baked French Toast.

I will say, as with almost any recipe I find, I wind up making it my own by tweaking it here and there and using ingredients I have on hand. That's what we did today, too. My son actually did all the work in making this yummy lunch treat.

In the meantime, here's the recipe we worked out.

Baked French Toast with Apple Pie Topping

Preheat oven to 350F

8 to 10 slices stale bread
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 tablespoon vanilla
1 pint of apple pie filling (You could also use a can of apple pie filling)

Lay the bread slices, overlapping slightly, in a well greased 9x13 baking pan or dish.

Mix the eggs, milk, and vanilla very well until light and frothy. Pour the mixture over the bread and let it soak a couple of minutes. Drop spoonfuls of the apple pie filling over the top and spread it out.

Cover with foil and slip into preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and finish baking, another 30 minutes, or until lightly browned and toothpick test proves doneness.

Remove from oven. Let rest 10 minutes. Serve it warm on a plate with melted butter drizzled over or powdered sugar sprinkled on.

Here's a picture of the finished product, plated. It was super good. Like a cross between bread pudding and custard, with a hint of apple pie thrown in!

And here's the video showing how we did it!

When life gives you lemons or cranberries

Last fall I canned up quite a few jars of cranberry sauce. I'd had the berries in the freezer and in anticipation of moving off-grid, I started canning everything in there. The sauce was one thing. However, I'm pretty sure I measured too much water into the pot of berries and sugar because every last jar of cranberry sauce was runny and soupy.

We've been eating it anyway, but I canned it in pints and we can't go through a pint before it goes bad. No real refrigeration, you know. (Next time I'll use half-pints.) Well, we had it with a "Thanksgiving" style meal the other night. Home canned chicken, gravy, stove top stuffing (don't judge - it was on sale, I had coupons, and it's tasty), and a few other homemade items. Still had about 3/4 of the pint left after dinner.



Today I decided I needed to do something different with the cranberry sauce, so I searched through the recipes on my computer and came up with a quick bread recipe to use. It was actually a pumpkin bread recipe, but after tweaking it a bit, the result is moist, delicious cranberry bread!

Here's how I made the bread:

   1/4  Teaspoon baking powder
   3/4  Teaspoon salt
   1/2  Teaspoon cinnamon
   1 Teaspoon baking soda
   1 2/3  Cups flour
   1 1/2  Cups sugar
   1/2  Cup oil
   2 eggs
   1 1/2 cups cranberry sauce

Sift together baking powder, spices, baking soda and flour.  Beat
together other ingredients, then gradually add sifted ingredients.
Mix well.  Bake one hour in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees or until
it tests done.

I would probably use about 1 1/2 cups of any wet syrupy fruit in this recipe. Let me know what you think if you make it!